Flower formed by many insects Best answer on the web

  • While studying animal communication in the 80s, I read about a flower that was totally formed by differing colored insects....lighter near the center, then gradually getting darker on the outer rim. The center was all yellow. When disturbed, these insects would fly away, then return to the exact proper place to form the flower again...yellow to the center, etc. I cannot find any reference anywhere and my friends think I made it up. Can you help me prove I am not a liar???


  • EXACTLY what I wanted!!! Now I can prove I was not making it up. THnak you so so much!


  • I believe your insect is the flatid (or flattid), a type of planthopper.

    "In African Genesis, Robert Ardrey mentions an example that seems to me a conclusive argument against total, uncompromising Darwinism: the flattid bug. He was standing with the anthropologist L.B.S. Leakey, looking at a coral-coloured blossom like a lilac. Leakey touched the twig, and the flower dissolved into a swarm of tiny insects. A few minutes later the insects re-settled on the twig, crawled over one another's back, and once again became a coral-cloured blossom, a flower which does not exist in nature. Some of the insects were green; some were half green and half pink; others were deep coral; they arranged themselves so as to look like a flower with a green tip."
    Right to Wisdoms Archive: Evolution or Intelligent Design
    http://righttowisdoms.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_righttowisdoms_archive.html

    "The Auchenorrhyncha are favourite prey of various animals including birds, reptiles and other arthropods. In order to defend themselves, cicadas rely on camouflage and are excellent fliers. In addition to jumping to avoid predators the remaining Auchenorrhyncha use various other means of defence including coating their bodies and eggs with a wax-like secretion, living in spittle, gaining protection from ants and bees in exchange for their excreted honey dew, living underground and mimicry--one harmless leafhopper looks identical to a stinging wasp, a group of flatid bugs bears an uncanny resemblance to a flower stalk and a fulgorid bug has evolved to look just like a lizard."
    Natural History Museum: Hemiptera...It's a Bug's Life
    http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/insects-spiders/fathom-bugslife/assets/26feat_its_a_bugs_life.pdf
    The ability of flatids to mimic flowers was mentioned in a 1964 Alfred Hitchcock film, "Marnie." That's where I first heard of them:
    "In Africa, in Kenya, there's quite a beautiful flower. It's coral coloured with little green-tipped blossoms, rather like a hyacinth. If you reach out to touch it, you'd discover that the flower was not a flower at all, but a design made up of hundreds of tiny insects called Fattid bugs. They escape the eyes of hungry birds by living and dying in the shape of a flower."
    Script-O-Rama: Marnie Script
    http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/m/marnie-script-transcript-alfred-hitchcock.html
    When "Marnie" was released, in 1964, I was a college student. My curiosity was piqued by the description of bugs that cluster together to mimic flowers. When I consulted my biology professor about this, he set me right on the spelling: "flatid" or "flattid," rather than "fattid."
    I hope this is exactly what you're looking for. If not, or if anything is unclear or incomplete, please request clarification; I'll be glad to offer further assistance before you rate my answer.
    Best regards,
    pinkfreud









  • #If you have any other info about this subject , Please add it free.#
    Your name:
    E-mail:
    Telphone:

    Your comments:


    If you have any other info about Flower formed by many insects , Please add it free.